The "Make" Addiction - Vol. 1 Ed. 35
Mar 16, 2021 11:31 pm
World Builders' Guild Newsletter
Making stuff is my crack and I'm an unrepentant junkie.
Maybe you're more of a giver or a provider or something along those lines. That's the same idea as "making stuff". The point is you have something valuable inside of you that wants to come out. In my case, I feel a compulsion to create things.
I took to the creative side of things early in life. Once I could hold a crayon, I was hooked. Anywhere I went I would have a sketch pad and a writing utensil. Have to go to work with Dad? Jackpot. Raid the supply closet and draw in the library all day. Visiting a far away relative? Fire up the rolling art studio.
I graduated from pen on legal pad to more refined media like crayon on newsprint and felt tip marker on sketch paper. My original Christmas cards still adorn the mantel at my parents' house, weird cardback staple-job and all (wasn't much of a book binder, apparently).
It was around this age that I was introduced to the magic of Legos. I upped my dosage of making stuff. There wasn't a birthday wishlist or letter to Santa without a plea for more technicolor bricks. I spent my time crafting entire cityscapes that spilled from my desk down to my bedroom floor. I'd put together what I later would recognize as proto table-top RPG environments using the esteemed "Castle" sets of the day.
I want to do a backflip into this sea of Legos (Ryan Quintal on Unsplash)
Old encyclopedias and some Lincoln Logs make for a miniature bowling alley.
I published my own video game magazine with some friends. I designed custom collectible sports cards. I made my own POGs because my designs were leagues ahead of the commercial products.
My brain insists that reality is best interpreted through creation. The energy needs to come out or I become a mutant; a powder keg of volatility. I have to constantly vent the fumes over the vat of simmering chaos.
When did I fail the hardest? When I felt the most pain? When I didn't see a way forward?
What was I missing?
Making stuff.
My drug. I was a junkie gone cold turkey. I had no source of the good stuff anymore (or, mostly had forgotten that I could have it anytime I wanted if I just asked).
My brain failed to process the world in a way I could cope with.
It didn't.
I let the world consume me.
Lights out.
Any time in my life that I forget what gives me vitality—making stuff—I fall. Without question. Every day I need to create. It can be something valuable like this newsletter or it could be a sketch like a throwaway guitar lick.
The process must happen.
What do you yearn to make? Where's your inner boiling vat of life? What kind of story do you have to tell? What melody is in your head? What world will you bring forth today?
Let it out.
To future worlds,
Matt Ventre
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